Feelings of HURT

Today I'm feeling extremely sad and alone. I've had my feelings hurt more times that I can even put a number on and like everyone else I've been able to move past them. Which of course I'll be able to do with today's hurt but for a change I'm going to write about it. Who knows maybe it will help, can't hurt right??

I'll have to give a tiny back story on where I am in life at this time. I had moved back in with my parents over a year ago due to financial problems. I love my parents but living with them as an adult is difficult at times. I should maybe clarify, it's not my dad with whom I butt  heads with, it's my mom. And truth be told I do love her and admire her for many reasons. That said, she can be hurtful with her words which I don't think she even realizes. But I certainly do.

Last week for instance I piece of mail came addressed to me and on the envelope it said "do not tamper with". There was no return address on it anywhere. As soon as I walked in the door she threw it at me and said " what the fuck kinda trouble are you in now ". I wasn't taken back by her choice of words, my mom could make a sailor blush, but I was taken back with the attitude she had. I opened the the damn thing and all it was was an advertisement for Kia Motors. I showed it to her and instead of saying sorry for accusing me of being "in trouble", her response was "well what the fuck do you expect me to think". I let it go and went upstairs to cry. I will never ever be more than a fuck-up junkie to her.

Today's hurt came from several text messages she received from my cousin. My cousin is a little flakey and even though I've given her my phone number a zillion times she always manages to call / text my mom's phone. This was yet another one of those times. My mom starts flipping out on me asking me what the fuck am I involved in now and why is Kristen texting my phone and blah, blah, blah. I told her I didn't know what was going on and that I'd once again call my cousin and give her my cell number. Of course that just wasn't enough for my mom. She continued to rant and rave and basically treat me like a piece of shit. 

My mom left for the grocery store and I went up to talk to my dad. I was in tears and he just wrapped his arms around me and let me cry. He told me to get out of the house for a little bit and that he'd talk to her when she got home. Now I wasn't here when she came home so I can't say for certain what transpired between the two of them. I'm guessing it didn't go well because when I came in she looked me dead in the face and said, "what the fuck is your problem?". I tried to tell her that she had hurt my feelings by what she had said but she started mumbling something about her not having had said anything. A lost cause. 

She just doesn't understand me. She never has and she never will. It saddens me that we'll never have that "relationship" I've always wanted us to have. I have to accept her for who she is and pray that one day she'll see the light. For now all I can do is try to let her words trickle off me and go on with my day. 

I guess I feel a little better having put this all down on "paper" so if anyone happens to read it, thank you.

Random thoughts on a gloomy Saturday....

Well I can't remember whether or not I've posted about my job offering me a work from home position or not but in case I haven't...they did. Which by the way I am absolutely thrilled about, I cannot wait til everything is in order and I can start my workday without ever having to leave my house. That means no more having to clean the snow and ice from the car; which if I'm being honest, what I really do is go down and start my car and let it run for like 20 minutes until most of winter's "beautiful" gift has mostly melted away on its own! Geez that alone will save me hundreds of dollars in gas a year, I just absolutely, positively HATE the cold.

I'm not sure when this will happen but in the mean time they've started a pilot program which is allowing us to do our overtime for home. We don't use those big towers/hard drives anymore. We use something called a "virtual machine" which don't even bother asking... no freaking clue what it is. All I know is that it's like 10 times smaller than those tower things and that's about it. But the really cool thing about this thing is, I can somehow log into it using my laptop at home. I printed out the "instructions" on Friday which by the way was 25 pages long and thought to myself, "you may as well forget it, you'll never in a million years be able to figure this out". But to my total shock I was able to do it! Go me!!!!! I almost hit the floor when I figured out that I did it successfully. Me and technology are not the best of friends. But I like totally kicked ass today by installing this thing. So from now until I get sent home to work permanently I'll be able to work overtime from home. This is awesome for me because I don't usually work much OT because once quitting time rolls around my brain has turned to mush and I am so anxious that I'm ready to jump out of my own skin. This way I'll be able to take a break from it maybe take a little nap and then I can just log back on when I want and work another hour or 2 or whatever. I'm pretty sure I can work til like 9 p.m. With the holidays fast approaching I could really use the money so this will work out pefectly for me. Plus, I have got to get some serious cash stashed away and get my own place again.

Don't get me wrong I adore my parents but living with my mother as an adult is difficult to say the least. Christ almighty she didn't pay this much attention to me when I was 14! Now she wants to know where I'm going, who I'm going with and what time I plan on being home. And godforbid that I'm not home at the time I had said, she practically blows my phone up looking for me. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if she called upon the National Guard to go and look for my ass! Granted I gave the woman absolute hell when I was in my addiction but I've been behaved for a significant time now but she still has no trust at all in me.

She can be down right mean at times. For an example, on Friday a letter came in the mail for me the other day and the envelope ra stamp on it that said "do not tamper with" and had some kind of government looking insignia on it. There was no return address on it either. She literally flings it at me and says "what kind of trouble are you in now?" to which I reply, nothing I'm not in any trouble. I open the letter and here all it is is an advertisement for Kia Motor Company. I hand it to her and was like see, why do you always have to go there. Instead of apologizing she said something like, well how do you expect me to react? I was so fucking heartbroken that I ran up to my room and just cried. I'll never to anything more than a piece of shit junkie in her eyes. That hurts. I would just for once like to hear her say to me, that she's proud of me. I know I can't change who she is or any of the things that go through her mind. I know I can't blame her in a way but I just wish that she'd seem for who I am today and not the monster I once was.

I think this post is going to end up being much longer than I intended but there's been something major going on in my life that I can't say out loud to anyone. My very best friend in the world is incarcerated as I'm writing this, and he's still got about a year left to do. He actually ended up getting a great offer through the DA which I believe is going to save his life. My friend who'll I'll refer to for all intents purposes will be MCH. We met around 2 to 3 years ago and just immediately hit it off. I swear if I wasn't gay he would be my husband! We did actually give a romantic relationship a try for a while but I could not keep lying to myself and it wasn't fair to him either. I thought that when I had to give him the "breakup speech" MCH would hate me and we'd never speak again... so not the case. He completely understood and there were no hard feelings from either side. He is such an awesome guy. Anyways we have been writing these incredibly deep and honest letters while he's been away. We've gotten to know eachother on such an incredibly honest level that it actually amazes me. I have found my male soul mate. We're closer now than ever. MCH and I met while we were both using and although our relationship was "founded" on being junkies together we have always had a special connection. Well through our letters I found out that when he was married he had wanted children but his wife was just beginning her career in law and had no interest in starting a family. This broke his heart; he had always pictured himself a father but had given up on the idea even after they had been divorced.

I have always dreamed of being a mother and well I guess you can tell where this is headed - once gets out and we establish some serious boundaries, we are going to have a baby together! This is a huge commitment I know so I'm not jumping in without the two of us having several serious conversations but I'm going to get ( hopefully ) what I've always wanted - a beautiful, precious child with a man I admire and who will be a wonderful father. What more could I ask for?

Looking for my next tattoo

Internet world, I'm looking for an artist to help me; I have wanted a tattoo of a pin up girl for as long as I can remember but I have the hardest time finding exactly what I want and since I can't draw it's kinda impossible for me to "show" someone what it is that I'm looking for.

I know what I don't want. I don't want her to be cartoonish, I prefer realistic. I don't want the traditional big tits and ass trashy chick. And I don't really want a military style one either.

Here is what my idea is and it's very hard for me to get down into words the image I have of her in my mind. She has to be beautiful because I think women are beautiful and I want that represented in her. I'd prefer her to be a red head or a brunette, yes I want a color tat, no black and grey. And then here comes the tricky part, I want her to represent where I came from so I need her to be a heroin addict. I know right... how do you make a junkie beautiful? This is my problem.

I've searched all over the internet for pics of pin up girl tattoos and I've come across a few that I find attractive but not all the qualities I want are in the girls. The closest I've come is what I think in the tattoo world is referred to as sugar skull? Or possibly Zombie. Both of them are cartoonish and although I like them they aren't exactly what I want.

See this is going to be my last tattoo and it's going to be in a very visible spot, unlike my others that I can hide if need be. That's another dilema, since I want to represent the heroin addict I once was, I don't want to be looked at funny by society or potential employers, things of that nature.

I'm just so frustrated because I see her in my head but can't get her onto skin or even paper for that matter. So I'm hoping that there is an artist that just so happens to come accross my blog post and is willing to work with me on my dream.

Here are a couple of pics I found that I liked:

Yep, it's football season and I'm well prepared. I have a love for my Pittsburgh Steelers just as much as any other die hard fan. I love them when they're good, HATE them when suck and put up with them when they're just okay.

I grew up watching the games with my dad and his friends and didn't actually pay much attention to it until my late teens. But when I did finally start watching them play because I wanted to and not just because it was Sunday and Dad said that's what we're watching, I instantly fell in love with the sport.

Now I don't claim to be any kind of football guru and most of the time when that yellow flag goes flying through the air I have no idea why and didn't see what had transpired. That's because I only watch the quarterback and that's hard enough to keep track of. Honestly, I usually have a hard time finding the damn pigskin. Now my dad, the is like an enigma to me. That man can watch every single player, both on offense and defense, and is calling out penalties even before the referee's. I don't know how he does it. Espcially since he can't even find the hamper for his dirty or clothes, or the closet to hang up his coat. But I'm telling you my dad is amazing to watch while I watch the football game if that even makes sense.

Being raised in Pittsburgh gives me a certain kind of pride. I feel bad for the folks who haven't grown up here and who have shitty ass football teams... ie Cleveland. It almost feels like an honor to be able to watch these men play a game I have come to love. I don't get all riled up as some fans do. Sure I might yell out a profanity here or there when they do something stupid but for the most part I just sit back and watch my dad watch the game. It's something that has deepened our bond. I'm a daddy's girl even though I'm approaching the age of 37. Always have always will be.

Weird how my mind works, when I started to write this blog post I only meant to talk about my favorite football team but as it turns out I guess I had more than just football on my mind. As I get older and begin to mature I notice that instead of going to my mother for advise, I've always kinda shifted to my dad. I don't know if that's the way most father-daughter relationships are or not but that's the way ours is, my dad and I.

I can tell it hurts my mom's feelings but I just can't help it. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother just as much as I do my dad. It's just that my mom isn't the type who can just sit there and listen; she has to "fix". Sometimes I just need to vent or to cry and I'm not looking for advise, I'm just wanting a shoulder to cry on and my dad has the ability to distinguish when and what I need at the moment. I don't intend to give my mom a bad rap because she is one of the most giving people I've ever come across, she's just not good with listening to someone. She's always got an answer or if it's something that makes her uncomfortable she'll just get up and leave the room. Take the time I came out and told my parents that I was a lesbian.

I was 19 years old and I asked my parents to join me in their living room, that I had something I wanted to tell them. I could almost feel the tension coming from my mother in the air surrounding us. When I told them I was crying and I don't know why but I also appologized for it. Now I know that's a pretty big bombshell to drop on your parents but my mom did not take the news well. She was pretty much speechless and when she did try to say something, no words could come out. After about 5 minutes she just left the room.

My dad then came over to the loveseat I was sitting on and he just wrapped his arms around me and let me cry. He never even finched when I told them. His eyes were a bit misty but other than that he didn't say anything either. But you see that's exactly what I needed - a sounding board, someone I could finally tell this secret to. It was the 2nd hardest conversation I've ever had to have with them.

When I had finally calmed down and stopped crying my dad let go. I fell back into the sofa and felt completely drained. You know what my dad said? He grabbed my hand and looked me straight in the eye and said, "Sugarbear, you are my daughter and frankly your sex life is none of my business. All I want for you is to be happy and if it's going to be a woman who does that well then that's just what it is. Quite frankly I don't want to know who is having sex with my little girl". That last sentence cracked me up and the two of just burst out laughing. My mom came back when she heard us laughing but she still didn't say much.

After I had gotten home to my own apartment that night, she called and said that she wasn't mad but she felt bad. She said that she didn't want my life to be any harder than it had to be. That I could respect. I would think that most parents would feel that same way. It's just so damn strange to me that I can talk to my father about who I'm dating or if we're watching a movie I can say to him something like "Geez, she's hot as hell"!

I don't know how this post turned into all of this and it probably doesn't make any sense because I'm trying to keep up typing the words that are spewing from my mind. So before I get all jumbled up I'm gonna shut it down for tonite and maybe I'll read it in the morning. Or maybe I won't. Maybe it was just meant to be. I don't know.

It's the beginning of my favorite season...fall! I absolutely am in love with the smells and beautiful colors that surround us during this time. I just love pulling out my favorite old worn ratty jeans and sweaters and heading off with my dad to a high school football game or just taking a book to the park and enjoy the world around me.

Does this sound corny? Oh well I don't really care if it does. I love this time of year. Some prefer summer but for me it's just too damn hot ( well not so much this time around ) and others like spring ( too wet ), while others enjoy the winter ( oh HELL no, too damn cold ). I wish I was a little kid again so I could rake up a giant pile of leaves and just jump into them! My brother and I used to do that all the time and it was just so much fun. I guess the innocence of youth may have had something to do with that but it was just plain AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Living here in Pittsburgh I have noticed for the last few years that we don't get the whole 4 seasons like we used to. I miss them, well not winter anyway. I'm no environmentalist but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out - our climate is changing. No this is not going to be a post about global warming or the hole in the ozone layer, just a happy, nonchalant blurb about my love of autumn.

I've been struggling the last few months and having this good feeling is a huge relief for me. If you've never stopped by you wouldn't know what I'm referring to but any of you guys out there that have been here since the beginning know what I struggle with. I don't want to go into it and spoil the warm feeling in my heart so I won't. I'm just going to sit on the back porch and enjoy the beautiful fall evening!

Anyone else out there a fan of autumn? I'd love to hear from you....

I love you Suzy grandma

If anyone reading this is from the Pittsburgh area you may have seen on the news recently about a dirtbag that owned Penn Hills Monument Company. If you have not heard of this jerk off here's the jist.... this creep was taking people's money for headstones and instead of paying granite companies and engravers he took the money and purchased such items as concert tickets, jewelry, restaurants etc. Well his ass finally got caught in the sling. Allegheny county detectives finally had enough evidence to arrest his ass. I believe there were roughly 62 people that he did this to, my family being one of them.

My Suzy grandma, that's what I called her, passed away in March of 2011. My parents who are blue collar, hard-working American citizens believe in giving the "little guy" business over a big shot company. So when it came time to order my gram's headstone they decided to use the guy I mentioned above. Needless to say they had no idea of what he was doing. So we got robbed along with many other grieving families. This man took my parents money and bought everything but the headstone they had ordered.

Just when they thought they were going to have to buy another stone, one of the granite companies this jagoff screwed over called my dad and told him they had 5 blank stones and we were one of the lucky 5 to get one. I don't know why or how it all happened but my grandmother finally has her marker. So now when I go to visit her I can see her name and touch it too. And of course it's no match to having her here but it is a relief to know that she will never be forgotten.

I may have written a blog when she passed, I can't remember but if you had the chance to meet this woman you would've loved her instantly. She was special. She was the most generous, honest, faithful, compassionate, fun-loving lady you'll ever meet. I don't say this just because she's my grandma, I say it because it's true. She was truly remarkable and she is missed terribly.

I miss her. She always said the same thing whenever I was having a bad day or was feeling down. She'd say, "everything is going to be okay". And you know something grandma - you were right everything IS going to be okay!

I am outraged, pissed off and ready to fucking hurt someone right now! 

I am currently looking for a new job and someone told me that Cigna was hiring in its claims department. So I logged onto their site and actually found a position that seemed to fit what I was looking for. I cliked on the job description and everything seemed to be good until I got to this little blurb, which I will share with you in a just a moment. When I read this paragraph, a measly couple of sentences I became instantly enraged and went completely apeshit! I literally screamed out loud, " ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?". My poor cat took off running I yelled so loud.

Ok so I am a smoker (cigarettes here folks, not crack or pot) and yes I understand that it's bad for me. I also get the 2nd hand smoke thing too, well to a degree. I'm just being honest. But in my eyes it is what it is, so I smoke big fucking deal right? WRONG according to Cigna. Here is the paragraph that was embedded in their job posting:

Cigna strongly embraces the scientific evidence that the use of tobacco products is harmful to the health of the user, the user’s family, and the general public.  Cigna's mission is to improve the health, well-being and security of the people we serve, which starts with our employees. Starting with job offers dated January 1, 2014, Cigna will no longer hire – where state law permits -- applicants who use tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars and chewing or smokeless tobacco.  Currently, these states are: AL, AK, AZ, AR, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, KS, MD, MA, MI, NE, OH, PA, TX, UT, VT and WA.

If you’re passionate about making a difference one individual at a time, and would like to join the Cigna team, you’ll be screened for nicotine as part of the pre-employment drug screen in states that allow the screening. If you test positive for nicotine, although we won’t be able to offer you employment, we encourage you to check with your medical provider to explore your options and resources for quitting. Once you’re tobacco-free, you may re-apply for jobs with Cigna in [six] months.

So no matter how qualifed I am for this position or how hard of a worker I am I would be turned down simply because of a choice that I make to smoke. Since when did America become a communist country? Is it really any of their business what I choose to do on my own time? I cannot fathom how this is possibly legal. Is this not discrimination? Are they turning down applicants because they may have a drink of wine with their dinner? Are they turning away people who overeat? 

I could understand if I filled out my online application, got an interview but got turned down because I wasn't qualified or didn't answer their questions the way they wanted them to be but to not even be considered because I smoke is a fucking outrage. Who the hell do these people think they are?

I hope somehow someone from this people-bashing company gets wind of my post because believe me I searched their site for a place to contact them to give them a piece of my mind but couldn't find one. God please let someone see this! I am just so pissed off right now I don't even know what else to say.

So to anyone who reads this thank you for being my sounding board.